Requirements are not a document

A requirement document is an artefact of a decision, not the decision itself. When a build ships and misses, the specification is usually internally consistent — it simply encoded an assumption nobody tested.

The work that determines outcomes happens in the elicitation conversation: what question was asked, who was in the room, and whether anyone was willing to hear an answer that invalidated the plan.

Good elicitation is adversarial towards your own plan. I go into stakeholder interviews carrying the hypothesis I most want to be true, and I look for the cheapest way to break it.

Practically, that means asking people to describe the last time they did the task rather than how they generally do it. Generalisations are edited; recollections are not.

A requirement is ready when three people can independently state what would prove it was met, and when it maps to a commercial outcome you can name in a sentence.

If either test fails, the requirement is a preference wearing formal clothes.